


(Un)lucky boy

by Letraset



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Breastfeeding, Dark, Drugs, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Infantilism, Non-Consensual Body Modification, but not TOO dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-28 16:11:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letraset/pseuds/Letraset
Summary: Noah's life takes many twists and turns."Her gate was often wobbly and her words slurred together. Sometimes she would speak about things that he didn’t understand and that was always scary and her bulging red eyes would stare at him like he was a stranger."- Excerpt from (Un)lucky boy Chapter 1





	(Un)lucky boy

**Author's Note:**

> Characters are my own and all mistakes as well. 
> 
> This is my first work of fiction so do be kind. To get this story going I shamelessly stole a quite a bit from the beginning of this article: https://www.google.se/amp/s/psmag.com/.amp/social-justice/surviving-secret-childhood-trauma-parents-drug-addiction-94354  
If you have an issue with that please don't strain yourself and go somewhere else lol  
Tags will be minimal so as not to spoil the story. When applicable, warnings can therefore be found if you scroll down to the notes at the bottom.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Chapter 1**

  
In the lower, less-populated part of the city where they lived it was dangerous to walk around. Children didn’t play outside and monsters littered the streets, mouths opened wide with yellowed teeth protruding from their maws ready to eat little boys such as him.  
Noah knew not to venture out on his own, his mother had hammered that lesson into him early. By the time Noah was six, he was used to waiting – and waiting – for his mother to show up. On this particular afternoon Noah sat in a pool of sunlight that poured through their living room’s bay windows, and he was baking in his little jacket.

Would she be late? Would she come at all? What would she smell like? Noah had started sniffing her jacket in search of the new scent of stale pee.  
He had asked his mother once, if she’d had an accident. She’d blushed bright red and awkwardly laughed it off and Noah had never dared to ask again.  
But he knew that it _meant_ something – maybe that she was different, less safe. Her gate was often wobbly and her words slurred together. Sometimes she would speak about things that he didn’t understand and that was always scary and her bulging red eyes would stare at him like he was a stranger.

Despite it all, Noah was a decidedly happy boy. And if for some reason he wasn’t, he would tilt his head down and look up through his eyelashes at the person he was trying to persuade. If that wasn’t enough, though it usually was, as Noah was a _very_ adorable little boy with his moss green eyes and curly blond hair and not too many could withstand his cuteness. If by some reason they could, Noah would open his eyes impossibly wide, pinch his brows together and pout.

Sometimes he would tack on a _please_ at the end but he preferred to use the ‘_magic_’ word sparsely, if it’s used too often, momma said it’ll lose it’s potency or some such. Whatever that word means.

  
For two days now, Noah had peered anxiously at every car that rolled down the street. He was sick with worry that his mother wouldn’t show and sick with nausea from too little food and drink and rest.  
And that was a definite reason as to why he altogether missed the racket of someone climbing up the steps until the last possible moment.

He turned his head sharply towards the stairs and scrambled up on his little knees – almost vibrating with excitement he was, ready to pounce on her as soon as she came through the break in the wall.  
He knelt there on the floor for what could have only been seconds with his eyes fixed on the opening. It was empty. Then at once it was not.  
However, who arrived wasn’t his mother. Was in fact not anyone he knew. A sharp looking man with wide brown eyes, expertly pressed blue uniform with a wide brimmed hat on his head came forward.

Noah tried to tell him that his momma was on her way, cautiously because he was afraid the man would just up and leave him there and even more afraid that he would share his worry and decide that his mother wasn’t coming after all.

The man announced that there's nothing to be done, although they may leave a note if he so wish. Noah doesn't 'wish' - he wanted to remain until his mother appeared and that was that as far as he was concerned.  
"She'll be here soon, I know it, just you wait." He persisted - stubborn as a mule with a mighty scowl on his face.  
"I'm sorry kiddo but I can't do that, you see I'm a cop and I'm pretty sure there's a specific paragraph in my job description about not leaving little kids without their parents - alone."  
And Noah, who was far from stupid understands instantly.  
This man, who he now knew was a _police_man – was going to take him away. So he turned that frown upside down and flashed his cute Noah eyes and used his magic word, because this was absolutely an emergency.

The police man only looked at him with a downward tilt to his mouth and shiny eyes – and Noah suddenly knew that there wasn’t enough magic in the world to make him listen.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
When he was seven years old Noah became a ward of the state.  
Noah was very unhappy in foster care. After a few breif placements and a year in a children’s home that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Charles Dickens’s novell, he was placed with an elderly lady.

Her name was Sarah and she was perfectly ordinary which some people might’ve found boring, not that Noah thought so. In fact, as far as Noah was concerned, ordinary and predictable were good things because he knew what interesting families were like and the thought of joining one of them made him break out in a cold sweat.

Noah could vividly recall some of the stories the older boys had spoken about in hushed conversations at night.  
There was the one kid who spent 3 years with a lady who blew the monthly stipend from DCFS on her own kids and her foster Max got to eat maybe once a day, if he was lucky. _“But she was very generous with the beatings”_ said Max with a sneer and pulled down his shirt collar. _“Her favorite was the belt.”_  
Then there was the emotionally unstable kid who had been locked up in a basement for several weeks, he always cried at night because he was scared of the dark.

So it wasn’t beyond reason that Noah found himself to be a very nervous boy when he was unexpectedly asked to pack up his meager belongings in the customary grey trash bag he was roughly handed one Wednesday afternoon.

When they passed the play yard on the way to the car, the other boys who were outside, either cast him looks of pity or jealousy, the first were almost always older and a little bit broken and the second filled with hopeful expectations.  
Noah was a mixture of both.

Despite his misconceptions, Sarah seemed just the right side of boring. She lived in a small house and the white paint was peeling so badly that it would be more accurate to call it shedding. But Noah was an especially good boy and he always used his nice manners like his momma taught him, so he didn’t point that particular aspect out.  
The garden was also a bit worse for wear but that was of no matter for Noah.  
When he was little he used to pick flowers in the park and sell to unsuspecting strangers. He recalled that it was very important to give them just the right amount of water so they didn’t either dry out or drown.  
_He’ll help her, yes he will, and they will have the best garden in town._

  
The interior of the house wasn’t anything like Noah expected and for a while the only thing he could do was gape. Sarah took note of his expression and it made her smile cheekily.

”Welcome to my humble abode.” She said in her cigarette raspy voice and spread her arms wide, making an assortment of bangles at her wrists clank together noisily.

Noah didn’t think the social worker was very impressed by Sarah’s antics – by the way she scrunched up her nose like she’d smelled something bad. When Sarah’s smile dimmed and she lowered her arms Noah got spurred into action.

”I like it! It’s very….” He bit his lip and smiled. ”Colorful?”

”It is, isn’t it?” She said and beamed at him before turning to Noahs social worker, sticking out her hand. “Mrs. Sick I persume? a pleasure to meet you.”

Noah glanced at the woman’s face. She was frowning, as if she had been offered a plate of something foul.  
Indeed, her expression held a close resemblance to what he must’ve looked like when eating peas, highly nauseated, on the verge of throwing up. She was aptly named if nothing else Noah thought with a giggle escaping his lips.

“Pleasures all… mine.” Mrs. Sick responded slowly and daintily took the proffered hand. At least she has _some_ manners, _but not as good as mine_, Noah reflected proudly.

  
When all the pleasantries were over with they followed Sarah through the hallway and into the living room. It was cramped with a generous couch littered with colorful pillows a matching easy chair and a wooden sofa table in one end of the room and an inglenook and open bookcases in the other.

While the grown ups got seated, Noah, ever the curious boy was investigating, looking for anything extraordinary that might catch his eye and the room was full of extra extraordinary things.

The first treasure Noah found was situated in one of the lower units in one of the bookshelves. It was a ceramic figurine of a _bird dude_? – with a beret, teal blue jacket and shorts, too large shoes and pin small legs made out of metal. Next to it there was a bunch of books. _How to survive a garden gnome attack: defend yourself when the lawn warriors strike (and they will), Tickle his pickle!, Crocheting adventures with hyperbolic planes, Bombproof your horse and The Jewish-Japanese sex & cookbook and how to raise wolves._

So maybe Sarah wasn’t as perfectly ordinary as he thought at first, maybe she was even a little bit interesting. But not in the bad way the older boys at the home had taught him to stay away from, Noah thought “eccentric” might be the word and that was fine with him.

_Eccentric is not bad, just different and probably loads of fun._ Noah figured with a grin as he scrambled up from the floor at Sarah’s yelled invitation to cookies.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
Noah was alone a lot but he didn’t necessarily mind or that was what he told himself at least. He spent most of his time with Sarah in the garden, helping her pull weeds and water the flowers that had just begun to bloom. 

Sarah had a slight limp, so while Noah did the grunt work she spent the better part of her day sitting in one of the lawn chairs massaging her left big toe and the top of her foot.  
Sarah said it was called a _stress fracture_ and explained that military men have been ailed by it for hundreds of years during their marches too and fro.

“It’s fine, honestly! I almost feel a bit historic!” She cackled madly and continued spinning her tale. “In another life I was probably a soldier in some crappy army. I most likely wasn’t a very good one though. Daddy dearest always used to say I had a problem with authority and I guess that’s true in a way, my husband would’ve agreed I’m sure.  
Oh well, eventually all of your bad deeds will catch up with you even if it’s 200 years later or so. Me and my bad foot and Father and his bad heart.”

If there was a past life, Noah considered -that he must’ve done _something_ right or good at least, otherwise he would still be stuck at the orphanage, but he wasn’t. He was here with Sarah in the garden where he worked and she talked.

That night, Noah laid in his tiny bed in their tiny tiny house- listening to Sarah’s snores. Some, someone else that is, might have found the noise obnoxious. He on the other hand found it comforting, like the warmth of a blanket being tucked around him at bedtime. Sarah would always start snoring really quietly and he would strain his ears to hear the sound, then at some point it would get louder and louder and louder until it reached a horrible crecendo... and then it would stop altogether. Noah counted the seconds of silence and let her recommencing snores lull him to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
As days and weeks went by Noah slowly but surely settled into his new life. And it was _good_. Life was so so good and Noah couldn’t believe his fortune, couldn’t believe that this was really _his_. It worried and excited him at the same time. Worried, because Noah’s existence had previously been led by _mis_fortune, but it exited him at the same time, because maybe this was when the tide would turn or maybe it already had.

  
Summer was just at it’s end and the air turned crisp and cold when evening approached so they begun to spend their evenings curled up under blankets on the sofa rather than outside. Like that, they often stayed up and talked late into the night.

They had tea. Noah got to choose the flavor and he picked a new one every evening. This one smelled like chocolate and strawberrys and he watched attentively while Sarah measured out several scoops into a strainer before she poured the boiling water into a heavy clay pot.

He knew it wasn’t really proper for young little boys to be up at such an hour, but Sarah didn’t seem to mind or at least she never said anything. And Noah was far too content, too happy to even imagine leaving his cozy little burrow of blankets for his bed without prompting.

  
They looked through Sarah’s old photo albums and he got to follow her life through pictures and stories all the way back from the beginning till now.

“This summer, the earths magnetic force must have been especially powerful. Nowadays my breasts point heavily down towards my belly and my thighs have fallen a good few inches beneath my kneecaps. I mean look at this photo,“ Sarah stabbed her finger down and bemoaned. “That was just last year! And look how fit I was. This Noah, this is only one testament to how quickly things can change.”  
Privately, Noah imagined that a far more likely culprit was all the sugary goodness Sarah got into on a daily basis. He kept quiet though, because as his momma used to say, _“speech is silver but silence is golden my boy.”_

  
“Who’s this then?” Noah asked pointing to a particular photo with a stocky man in it. He was quite sure that he wasn’t in any of the other pictures as they had slowly but meticulously gone through them all.  
“Oh that. That was my father. Remember how I told you about him and his bad heart Noah? Well that wasn’t necessarily all there was to it,”  
“It wasn’t?”  
“I’m afraid not. The truth is, he actually snored himself to death,” She said with a sad twist to her mouth.  
“Snoring?” Noah asked disbelieving. “You can’t die from that!”  
Sarah smiled brightly but her eyes were dull.  
“Ha! I almost thought I got you. But I guess not. My smart boy is not so easily fooled.” She said fondly and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his hair.  
Noah snuggled into the embrace and forgot all about their silly conversation.

  
Noah woke up alone in a tangle of blankets on the couch. Sarah was nowhere to be seen but he could clearly hear her puttering around somewhere in his vicinity.  
With a grumble from his belly and a great big jawn splitting his lips apart- he untangled himself from his self imposed prison of fabric and followed the sounds into the kitchen.

The first thing he saw when he stumbled in was a bunch of brightly colored balloons.

If he was honest and Noah was _nothing_ but honest, he’d kinda forgotten all about his birthday. And actually if he was going to run with this honesty thing, he’d made it a point _not_ to remember this certain date, just because usually nothing out of the ordinary happened. Which, was always slightly disappointing, no matter how used to it he was.

On this particular day though. Something highly _out_ of the ordinary happened.

Sarah sung, slightly off tune but no less lovely. On the kitchen table was a cake with nine burning candles and she was holding something wrapped in her hands. A present! Right. That is what you get on birthdays. Of course. Noah suddenly felt a bit silly but also like he wanted to cry.

  
The day had passed in a wild rush of joy and before Noah even knew it, night had come.  
As he was laying in his bed he felt a fluttering deep in his belly and his heart skipped and then beat wildly in turn.  
He fervently wished to tell someone about his unbelievable luck, he wanted to puff up his chest and brag to anyone who cared to listen. Even the gloomy children at the orphanage would do.  
It was at this point Noah realized the he had absolutely no one to tell.  
Considering he only had Sarah and he couldn’t very well brag to her now could he. That would just be incredibly _weird_ Noah concluded, seeing as he mostly wanted to brag about _her_. About how wonderful she was, the best really.

With a deep sight he reached the obvious conclusion that there was nothing to be done about it. Not this night at least. _Unless…. but no._  
He most assuredly _didn’t_ want to be like that weird kid Jonas who had imaginary friends and more often than not spoke to himself.  
With that in mind he pushed the disturbing picture- of speaking gibberish to himself in an empty room -aside to the back of his mind and focused on settling deeper beneath his blanket and comforted himself with hugging his new teddy bear close. _Stuart_, his first real toy in the entirety of his life time, bought specifically for him.  
He fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

  
Sarah was good company even though she was like a _hundred_ years old. He came to know a lot about her, like the fact that she had a dog once. Jesper the yorkie. His small yellow teeth smelled like world war and his claws were way too long. She told him the story of when he pissed from her balcony straight into the neighbors beer and how he escaped whenever he got the chance. The cops knew who Jesper was. Yes they did. On the run again he was the little troublemaker. Sarah laughed fondly and said: _“Bless my heart, I never called him by his pedigree name. Imagine Noah! Me calling the cops crying and reporting my Cognac missing.”_

Sarah was good company, she really was.  
Nevertheless, the persistent thought of needing something more lingered not unlike a bad smell, and Noah couldn’t help but sometimes think that it would be awfully nice to have a friend his own age.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
It was a day like any other day, he stumbled out of bed still sleepy but unable to resist the smell of freshly made pancakes. He ate them with a mix of strawberrys and blueberrys with whipped cream on the top. Sarah was standing in front of the stove whisteling a cheery tune, flipping pancakes and serving them to him golden brown and crisp. Noah could have as many as he wanted, he was a growing little boy after all she said and smiled brightly.

After stuffing both of their faces full they relaxed for a while in the garden. Even the days where growing colder now and Noah could smell autumn in the air.  
”This is too dull,” Sarah proclaimed with a sight.  
”What is?”  
”Well, just sitting here of course. And besides I’m getting tired of this scenery, I’ve been watching this particular backyard for the whole summer,”  
”But where would we go?” Noah asked with a hint of trepidation in his voice.  
Sarah’s expression turned thoughtful for a moment before she snapped her fingers and abruptly exclaimed with clear excitement: ”Let’s go to the park!”  
Noah nodded. His little cherub face painted with joy.

Sarah took a seat at one of the benches by the edge of the playground, took off her shoe and started massaging her toe and foot as was customary at this point. Noah, sighting some interesting things to climb high tailed it out of there.

  
For a while now Noah had been watching a little brown-haired boy trying to clamber up the ladder to the slide. It was not a far climb by any means but he was just so incredibly _little_, and Noah could tell that he was struggling. Several times now he’d almost gone ass over tea kettle and just with a stroke of luck managed to keep his balance on the small steps.  
Edging closer, Noah had just decided to intervene when the boy fell and landed with a solid thump on the ground.  
Noah immediately rushed over to make sure the little boy was okay and he was, just a couple of scratches and a little bit dirty but otherwise completely fine.  
The boy looked up at him with a wobble to his lips wondering if he should cry.  
”You’re okay.” Noah told him consolingly and grabbed one of the boys grubby hands in his.  
”Come on, I’ll help you go on the slide okay?”

  
When he crawled to bed that night he did so with a smile on his face, he was exhausted from all the running around that day but he couldn't ever remember being so happy before! He had made friends, real honest to god friends that were for life he thought.

_“This Noah, this is only one testament to how quickly things can change.”_ He recalled auntie Sarah saying. And indeed. All it took was him reaching out a hand.  
Turned out that the little brown-haired boy – whose name was Chris by the way – had two older brothers Noah’s age, and they got on like a house on fire. They even wanted him to come over for a sleepover! Imagine that!  
Noah thought again of those gloomy children at the orphanage. If they only knew what happiness awaited them they wouldn’t be so dreadfully dreary still.  
Choosing not to linger on those unfortunate, misguided souls he curled up under his blanket and with one last thought in mind, fell asleep.  
_Whatever comes, _he mused,_ everything will be well. He had Sarah and now he had friends. What more could he wish for?_

  
When the sun rose and morning came Noah opened his eyes to a world which immediately seemed a whole lot more promising.

Jumping out of bed and with a skip in his step he ventured out of his room. All was quiet and with a sniff of his small upturned nose he detected not a whiff of breakfast, which was unusual but not a great obstacle in the grand scheme of things.  
_Breakfast in bed it is!_ Noah decided, reasoning that it couldn’t be _too_ diffult. He’d seen Sarah make pancakes practically a _thousand_ times now, so with a child’s innocence, coupled with mounting confidence he recommenced on his first ever venture into the art of cooking.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
_”Be strong.”_ Said blurs of people at Sarah’s memorial service. Noah nodded, but inside him something twisted. Noah stood in a daze as people streamed by offering awkward words and hugs._ ”Be strong. You’re still young, someone else will pop up.”_ The social worker said before whisking him away.  
_Be strong?_ Noah thought. _How?_ When nothing was as he knew it and yet everything was exactly the same. He was _alone._

**Author's Note:**

> 2/8 Smaller changes have been made. Fixed the issue with my jumbled up tenses (which I found incredibly annoying when I noticed) and added roughly 800 words to make the story flow more smoothly.
> 
> WARNINGS  
•Drug abuse  
•Child neglect  
•Character death
> 
> Until next time


End file.
